Review: Die a Little

Die a Little by Megan Abbott

My rating: 3 of 5 stars



Another neo-noir from Megan Abbott. This is her first novel, and I think it shows a little. Lora King--schoolteacher, spinster, faithful sister to on-the-rise DA Assistant, Bill--doesn't quite trust Bill's new wife, Alice. Lora thinks that Alice seems just a little too hard, too mysterious, and knows people who are just a little too far from the right side of the tracks. And yet... there's intrigue there, too. Alice knows people who Lora couldn't dream of. People who live fast, dangerous lives. There are times where Lora can't decide whether she wants in or wants Alice out.

This is a pretty mixed bag.
The Good: Lora's change is handled well. She starts off lily-white and pure as freshly fallen snow, but by the end of the book, she's mixing it up with gangsters, tracking down a murderer, selling people out, and straight up lying to the fuzz. From spinster to sex-pot in two acts. Abbott does a great job, there, making the changes subtle at first, and keeping Lora from even noticing them, herself.

On the other hand, there's the plot. For much of the book, I couldn't decide whether Lora was right, and her sister-in-law was a crook, or if she was a little delusional and making the whole thing up in her head, which was fantastic. There was tension, there. And when it looked like Lora was going to take things into her own hands, I thought "Oh. Ooooh. Is she going to kill her? She's totally going to kill her!" But instead of giving us a real payoff, Abbott gives us a mess of a third act where too much happens, but none of it is really all that interesting. The third act just sort of fizzles out.


Overall a solid effort, but a weak third act prevents this from really hitting as hard as it should.



View all my reviews